


I.D.I.O.T.

by AshWinterGray



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anger, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Caretaking, Frustration, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Name-Calling, Protective Jason Todd, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshWinterGray/pseuds/AshWinterGray
Summary: Tim thoroughly believes he is justified in renaming his brother Idiot. After all, his brother is a stupid, frustrating, self-sacrificing idiot. And if he doesn't shut up, Tim is afraid he's going to...going to...
Relationships: Beth Kane | Alice & Kate Kane, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
Comments: 16
Kudos: 110





	I.D.I.O.T.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Batbirdies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batbirdies/gifts).



> This is all your fault, BB

It had been days, maybe weeks, possibly even months. Tim had lost track of time. They were all beaten and looking worse for ware as he swept his gaze over his brothers, sister, and teammates. Batman hadn’t been on planet when they were taken, and no one had come looking for them.

But that wasn’t why Tim was worried.

He’d endured worse. Several near death experiences, honestly, mostly in a row. And yet, here he sat, waiting, wounds slowly starting to heal. Tim was going to murder _him_ for this. The stupid, daring, thoughtful, brash, idiot that he was.

The door opened and the lump of what could barely be called a body any more was tossed in with little fan-fare. Tim ground his teeth together as the door was slammed shut and the several locks were put into place.

“Little…Wing…”

“No,” came the hiss from the lump on the floor, through panted, pained breaths. “No. Don’t move.”

Stupid. Moronic. Foolish. Self-sacrificing. _Idiot!_

The collars around their necks prevented them from getting close to each other. They had learned the hard way just how painful pushing those limits could be. Attempting to remove the collars often resulted in a lot of lost time. Hence why Tim had lost track of the days. They weren’t forbidden from talking, but they had learned that planning often caused pain.

More specifically and most recently, pain for Jason.

They had been captured one at a time. They started with Damian and Dick. Then Tim and Steph. Babs showed up next, and that was also how they managed to snag Cass. Harper showed up next, freaked out about her brother. And Duke had shown up a few days later. At least, Tim assumed it was days. Luke was here too, somewhere, and Kate and Bette had followed shortly. Helena Bertinelli had been snagged too. Jason was the last to show up.

Jason Todd. The stupid, self-sacrificing, moronic, secretly caring, overprotective… _I.D.I.O.T._ ”

He had taken one look at everyone, gotten the rundown of the situation, and had since offered himself for every single form of torture their captures had chosen to give. The first time had been when Damian had gotten smart with their captures, and Jason risked a near-deadly shock to offer himself. After the third time, Damian had given up on being sassing their captures. Especially when Jason’s heart stopped, and they didn’t see their brother for roughly three days after.

Since then, Jason had constantly offered himself, and he was clearly their captor’s new favorite toy.

“Elliot came to watch today.”

Thomas Elliot. Bruce’s once best friend, and current psychopath that wanted to take over Bruce’s life. From the rich boy persona, right down to Batman. It made sense that he would be their captor, but how Elliot managed to get the funding or resources was beyond them, but they suspected a second party. If not a third.

“Hood, we can-”

“No, Batwoman,” Jason cut Kate off. They were allowed masks. A sick game by Elliot, apparently. The people actually holding them didn’t know their real identities, and those that tried wound up dead. “No. I won’t let you go through this. So don’t offer.”

Jason continued to lay on the ground, panting heavily as silence once more filled the room that had been their cage. The green glow of Jason’s eyes was the only sign that the Lazarus waters were still flowing through his blood, trying to heal the damage, but as time passed, the glow had begun to dim. They had refused to talk about the Lazarus affects, choosing instead to watch Damian’s reaction.

Today’s reaction was by far the worst.

“You won’t last much longer, Aki.”

Jason shifted his glowing green gaze to Damian. “Better me than you.”

_Stupid. Stupid. Idiot._

The thing was, before Jason had shown up, each of them _had_ been subjected to torture. They still got the occasional shock, and someone would occasionally come and mess with them, but Jason had taken the brunt of that torture. For them.

“When we get out of this, I’m going to hug you and not let go,” Dick directed at Jason.

“You mean _if_ ,” Jason half-wheezed, half-chuckled.

Jason was the brash, reckless, angry one. He was the one who wanted nothing to do with the Bats. The one who killed. The one who fought on his own terms, even if that meant fighting Batman and the entire Justice League.

But Jason was also the self-sacrificing one. The one with the stupidly big heart that seemed to bleed and out and never stop. The one who longed to protect and be protected. Jason had been hurt, and though he often hurt back, he also used that hurt to love because he knew what that pain was like.

_When_ they got out of this, Tim had every intention of joining Dick in that hug.

Tim hunched over himself, careful to keep his distance, as he once more tried to call out for his friend.

“Kon. Please. Help.”

Thomas Elliot had been prepared, obviously, and Tim suspected the room was filled with lead. Preventing any call for help to any Kryptonian. No trackers either. No comms to call for help. He’d been thorough. Prepared for anything and everything.

_An escape plan would be a lot easier to come up with if he wasn’t concussed._

“Stop thinking so hard, baby bird,” came Jason’s huff of breath. “You’re heads still too fried for that. Huntress; get off your leg and get some _sleep_. Pain isn’t a good way to stay awake. Stop picking at the scar, Blue, it’s not healed yet. You’ll bust it open. B-Wing, shift a little to your left. You’re a little too close to Batgirl.”

This was _routine._ Jason just…acting like their caretaker as if he hadn’t just endured hours of torture. It would have been kind of nice if Jason’s wasn’t _bleeding out_ right in front of them. They had learned to listen, though, because Jason was generally right about these sorts of things. Even if it was inherently frustrating to watch and hear.

“Kon,” Tim tried again, begging for his best friend. “ _Please_.”

The explosion was rather startling. Tim would admit. It took all of their willpower not to topple towards each other, and even then, Tim made the mistake of leaning _forward_ when the explosion hit, causing a shock to go through him _and_ Jason.

The cry Jason gave would haunt Tim’s nightmares for months to come. Maybe even years.

“What was tha-?”

Babs barely finished asking the question when a second explosion rocked the building, and it took everyone every ounce of strength they had not to fly across the room. They couldn’t risk that right now. Not with too many unknowns. This was either a rescue or a final death sentence, and none of them were eager to find out.

“Everyone try to maintain your footing!” Dick quickly took charge, pushing himself up on shaky legs. “We don’t-”

Something zipped into the room and stopped before Tim. Despite the concussion, it only took Tim a second to figure out who was standing before him, and when he did, he chocked out a sound between a laugh and a sob.

“Heya, Red!” Bart Allen grinned at him. “We’ve been looking for you!”

The speedster made quick work of the collar, before going to everyone else and releasing the bonds. Tim quickly started to stumble towards Jason and had barely made it to his brother’s side when Bart finished with Jason. But what worried Tim was that the speedster paused and suddenly looked rather green before he pulled off the offending collar. Tim didn’t blame Bart for his reaction.

_Jason looked terrible. Worse than Tim could have imagine._

_I.D.I.O.T._

“I’ll need to get help,” Bart told Tim. “I can’t carry him out like this on my own.”

Tim gave a half-conscious nod in acknowledgment before Bart whizzed off. Despite the door being open and the guards no longer providing a problem, not to mention the relief over the lack of collars, none of the Bats dared leave the room. Kate had gotten to Jason’s side next, pulling him onto her lap. Tim was gripping Jason’s hand in a vice grip, and there was only a small relief at the feeling of Jason gripping back. The other were picking their way over too.

But Bart’s help got their first.

Princess Koriand’r took one look at her friend and hardened her gaze as she took him from Kate, who gave a slight cry of protest. Kori paused for just a moment, locking eyes with Kate and then Tim, before the two relented their hold and allowed Kori to take off. Bart took control of the situation after that, carefully speeding the rest of the Bats out of the room and to someplace safe.

It took Tim’s concussed brain a hot-second to recognize the Manor, but when he did, he slumped into the awaiting call of darkness that had been flittering in his vision. His last thoughts were of Jason and that relieved smile on his face as Tim sobbed in his line of sight.

\-----------------------

The last person Batman expected to see when he entered the WatchTower was Princess Koriand’r, his oldest son’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, and his sec-estranged son’s best friend. He _especially_ hadn’t expected to see her looking so morbid when she turned away from Dr. Mid-Nite and Black Canary to greet him.

But Bruce had also seen the look enough times to know what it meant.

“Who-?”

Batman barely barked out before Dinah stepped in front of him with a raised hand and a warning glance.

“All of them,” she informed him. “The Bats went missing one by one a month and a half ago. We had been searching for them for weeks under the aid of Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn. Not even the Birds were exempt, and we were lucky that only the ones that worked closely with you were taken. But it took too long for us to realize what was happening, and even longer to find them.”

“The villain known as Alice tracked them down and contacted us,” Kori explained. “The Titans acted immediately and with haste.”

_Beth had gotten involved?_

Batman knew Kate and Beth had their…differences, and it was only on his own memories of his cousin that Bruce let Kate and occasionally Bette, deal with his her, but Beth wasn’t one to get involved in these sort of things. Whatever happened had to be truly horrible for Beth to involve herself, let alone contact heroes and risk her own safety.

“It was Hush,” Dinah stated, once more snapping Batman’s attention to her. “We believe a second party was involved, but Hush has been taken into custody. Most of the Bats were taken to their home, but…”

And this was why Kori had been here to greet him, why Charles McNider was standing nearby, and why Dinah had been elected as the one to break the news to him. Because one of his family members was hurt. Dangerously so. So much so that they rushed them to the _WatchTower_ rather than leave them with Leslie and Alfred.

“Bruce,” Clark’s voice was quiet, soft, as his hand landed on Batman’s shoulder. “You can’t go in there angry.”

Batman might have stabbed Clark with the piece of Kryptonite in his belt had the man not been _right._ His family, possibly one of his _children,_ had been made to suffer a cruel, painful agony that he hadn’t been there to prevent. The thought made Batman’s blood boil, but it made the heart he was reluctant to admit he had, ache and throb in anticipation. It made his very soul cry out.

“It was Jason.”

Bruce felt his breath catch in his throat.

\----------------------

A hand brushed hair from Kate’s head, and if it wasn’t so familiar and rare, Kate might have leaned into the touch. So, reasonably, Kate’s eyes snapped open. Only for a stab of light to shoot through her eyeballs, and she gasped and groaned at the pain it caused her throbbing head.

The hand didn’t stop massaging though, and after a moment, Kate opened her eyes once more.

“Beth?” Kate groaned as she slowly opened her eyes this time. “What-?”

“Alfred is still as kind as I remember,” Beth answered gently. “He let me see you.”

Beth sounded wistful, even a little relieved. It didn’t take long for Kate to recognize the Manor guest room. This was probably Beth’s first time back to a place that symbolized their childhood home. It was kind of nice, actually. Having Beth here.

Of course, then the memorize slammed back into Kate’s brain.

“Jason-!”

“Is healing,” Beth soothed as she placed her hands on Kate’s shoulders to prevent her from bucking up. “And resting. The superhero satellite gave us an update a few hours ago.”

Those words sounded funny. Superhero satellite obviously meant the WatchTower. And it was a relief to know Jason was healing, especially after seeing the scars that mapped his skin. But the way Beth said it…

“It was you,” Kate concluded. “You found us and alerted the heroes.”

“And I’d do it again,” Beth stated flatly. “No one touches my family.”

Kate had to agree with Beth there. Thomas Elliot wasn’t going to know what hit him when Kate finished with him.

\-----------------------------------

If it hadn’t been for the Pit…

Bruce didn’t like completing that thought. Charles McNider had been horrified to find what he had in terms of the torture scars on Jason. From what Bruce had learned, Jason had purposefully taken the brunt, to protect his family.

It was a cruel, sick joke.

He gripped his son’s hand just a bit tighter, fingers all but digging into the pulse point on his son’s wrist. Even with the heart monitor, Bruce couldn’t believe his son was still here. Alive. Again.

“Dad?”

Bruce surged forward at his son’s voice, letting his face fall into Jason’s line of sight. He knew Thomas Elliot had used his “surgically modified” face to try and fool Jason, but his son was too smart for that. He had seen past Elliot’s disguise even as he was tortured and half-dead.

“I’m here,” Bruce promised, watching as Jason relaxed. “I’m here, Jay.”

“Haven’t…” Jason paused, licking dry lips and cracking his eyes open. “Haven’t called me…that…in long time…”

“I know,” Bruce whispered, and dang it, he wasn’t prepared for this. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Jason huffed a sound that might have been a laugh before the drugs took over once more and he fell back into a deep sleep. It was as close to a medically induced coma as they could get him with the Lazarus in his system, and Bruce was going to be by his side every step of the way.

That he promised.

\---------------------

“Hot,” Jason groaned.

“Well too bad,” a voice scoffed above him. “Idiots don’t get a say in such important matters such as cuddle piles.”

Jason furrowed his brow in confusion, eyes still closed. That sounded like Tim. But Tim wasn’t one for hugs. He was too touch-starved. And yet, as Jason slowly forced his eyes open, Tim was right there, laying on top of him.

So were Dick, Damian, Steph, Cass, Kate, Babs, Duke, Harper, Luke, Helena, Bette…

_What the heck?_

“Uh…what?”

“I told you,” Dick popped his head up, giving Jason a mischievous grin. “When we got out of there, I was going to hug you and not let go.”

Jason blanched.

_“WHAT!?”_


End file.
